Golgulsa (Golgul Temple)

kyong gju Travel Blog

So after saying good bye to Master Choi Young and Chong Ho we got on a bus heading for the east coast. Got to kyoung gju quite late, phoned Svein Ivar, Cecilie's Norwegian friend who is a Sunmudo instructor and lives at the temple. ( Sunmudo is the Korean martial arts which is being practised at the temple) We were going to meet him at the temple but he said we should come the next morning. It would cost 40 000 (240 kr) won from 5 o'clock in the afternoon till lunch the next day. Since we'd stayed a little longer than planned at master CY we figured we should only spend one night at the temple to stay on schedule. So for the time being we checked in at a motel for 40 000 won for both of us and wow! It was worth the money!!! We had the best time in a nice room with a flat screen tv, a computer with internet, a huge bed, a fridge, a water cooler, a jacuuzi (never mind the spelling.

her bodde vi, nesten en uke:)

..) and.....BATHROBES!! We were extatic and stayed up taking baths and zapping the 70something channels till four o'clock in the morning:) Good times. We knew life in the temple would be quite different so we enjoyed every second of it to the fullest.

Next morning we packed our bags and got to the temple around 2 pm. Walking up the hill we were quite nervous, didn't want to do something terrible, break temple rules and get 15000 push ups as punishment. Not to fret, though, the people there couldn't be nicer :) A welsh girl named Kayte (pronounced katie) met us at the top and showed us the office and got us checked in. Turns out she's working there while training to be a sunmudo instructor. She's been here a year now and has one to go. She has a bunny rabbit living in her room and is therefor considered quite strange by the locals because in Korea, bunnies are for eating.

Walked up the veeery steep hill to check out the main shrine before dinner at 5 pm. Our first sunmudo training began at 7:30 pm with a little bit of chanting first at 7. It was awsome!! all these jumps and kicks and super athletic people just spinning around like it was nothing :) We did our own thing with some other temple stay people and learned some tai chi and sunmodo routines. Wonderful!!! Finished at 9 and went straight to bed, wake up is at 4 am....

4:30 am: 30 minutes chanting in the main shrine (which of course is located at the very top)

5 am: 30 minutes meditation (full lotus position everyone)

5:30 an hour of walking meditation (at the crack of dawn)

6:30 BREAKFAST!!

8:30 90 minutes of Sunmudo training (after a little power nap.

Virgin Mary on a hill

.)

10 am: 108 bows

10:30: 30 minutes sitting meditation

11 am: teatime

11:50 LUNCH!

2 pm: 30 minutes sitting meditation (AGAIN!)

3 pm:working together (sweeping the road, picking weeds etc)

5:20 DINNER (last meal of the day)

7 pm: chanting

7:30 : sunmudo training 90 minutes

10 pm bed time

So, next day we follow the schedule till lunch and realise that there's no way we can leave so soon. So we pay for another night and keep training and having so much fun. Svein Ivar (also known as Mu Jong, his buddhist name) is usually busy so we only get to see him once in a while. But we find a really good friend in Kayte, she's telling us all sorts of usful stuff and invites us to her room at night to have tea and chat.

Andrew Oh

She's also really happy to have girls her own age drop by after a year with mostly just monks and older korean women. Actually, we're loving this so much that at some point we just decide to stay for a whole week! yey!! This is when a Korean looking dude from Chicago decides we're worthy of talking to. Actually this is the guy who at our first meal had to come over and ask us to move to the women's table. Stupid us had sat down at the men's table.... How were we to know?

But Andrew is really the sweetest guy and just hilarious... We all have a really good time at the temple and before we leave, since they have Sundays off, the four of us (kayte, Andrew and us) decide to skip out after Saturday night training and head into the city for a chimchill bang (sauna and bath house where you can spend the night.

Anette writing ''''stuff'''' (haha, inside joke)

alltogether for 7000 won/ 30 kr). We take a shower and go out eating and drinking and just having the best of times! Oooh and the Nore bang!!!! Singing yey!! It's past 5 in the morning when we head back to the chimchill bang to get some sleep. That however, was not an easy task. Friends at home: you see, chim chill bang is cheap because you don't really get a bed. Baically there are three areas; one bath for women, one for men and a "common room" for the two sexes to meet (wearing pajamas like clothes provided by the chimchill bang) In this room you have different saunas, a kiosk, massage chairs, maybe computers etc. But as mentioned before; no beds. Just flop down wherever there's room on the floor and try your best to fall asleep... Not so bad really, hadn't it been soooo overcrowded that the only free spot was in the corridor outside the toilets! Oh well, when in need.

Tai chi training with a view

.. So we lie there the tthree of us (kayte had gone to her boyfriend's) talking, waking all the others around us and don't shut up until someone calls us motherfuckers in korean (which andrew is fluent in) The best of times...

next day we meet up with kayte and her boyfriend to eat at mr Pizza. No more temple food!! anette has a serious craving for pizza but Cecilie just loves temple vegetarian yummie food and is a little bit sad about leaving it behind. Time to say good bye to kayte and we just rip it off like a bandaid and comfort ourselves with the thought of seeing eachother in May when we come back to stay longer :) Andrew is so sweet and comes with us to the bus station where we just hang out to stay together as long as we can. We miss them so much!!! And the poor thing had to get up really early this morning and is so tired he almost falls over BECAUSE!!!! AND GET THIS ITS THE FUNNIEST CRIME EVER!!!!!:

So, rewind about 12 hours, time for us to leave the temple.

Serenity

We've all got our backpacks and stuff and have to run to the bus. Andrew and Kayte helps us carry some of the things. Enter the huge blue camera bag suddenly hanging from Andrew's shoulder.... On the bus kayte makes a comment about the really cool camera inside and we all nod and agree. And keep talking about everything. In town we get a cab to the chim chill bang and as we get there.... Andrew's cell rings. Did we forget a camera bag at the temple? NO, wait! He runs out of the car, opens the trunk, throws his arm out pointing at the bag shouting Is that your camera bag?! We all exchange glances and say... noo? So here we are, with a stolen canon camera plus a gzillion lenses and super gadgets. Ops? Turns out that it belongs to a Japanese guy documenting the dan gathering at the temple that night and the everso helpful kayte had mistaken it for ours and given it to Andrew for him to carry.

Utsiden av soverommene den ene veien...

So in the bus when kayte commented it all of us assumed that it belonged to one of the others.... but we all agree later that that didn't really add up, so somehow we suffered from a serious case of mass stupidity to just let it go with that. I guess it could happen to anyone..? Anyways, The poor Japanese guy had to leave for another temple so Andrew had to get up really early and go there to deliver it to him. Yep, masters of crime, to the bone, brother!